Careers
Of time
and tide
For Stephen Taylor, running a
marine-software company means
plenty of chances to apply
familiar physics to unusual
real-world problems – and being
your own boss is nice too
We often hear of physicists trying to understand, map and explore objects in outer
space, but there are also big opportunities
for physicists where inner space is concerned.
This is particularly the case with the world’s
oceans. For example, while the study of tides
dates back thousands of years and was regarded as a dead subject for most of the last
century, we now realize that tidal physics has
an unexpected environmental dimension.
Applications of this revitalized science range
from the siting of tidal power generators and
the optimization of fuel-saving shipping
routes, to the effects of tidal height on flood
defences and satellite-based measurements
of sea level.
This is where firms like mine, Geomatix,
come in. Recent Geomatix projects include
improving the accuracy of tidal predictions
in the Thames Estuary for the Port of London Authority, estimating the mean sea
level for surveyors in the Persian Gulf, and
providing electronic charts of the sea bed
for the fishing industry. The work extends
across the related fields of cartography,
hydrography, oceanography and geodesy –
all areas where physicists are ideally suited
for tasks ranging from instrumentation to
surveys and mathematical modelling.
I graduated with a physics degree from
Nottingham University in 1975 and then
worked for the UK’s Water Research Centre
for some years before the tedium of government research drove me to back to academia. In 1984 I obtained a PhD in applied
physics from the University of Hull, specializing in laser remote sensing. My experience
with infrared-laser radar systems then took
me to the US, where I joined RCA Astro
Electronics, which is now part of the defence
giant Lockheed Martin.
At RCA I was expected to work on military
space projects involving optical communications. But when I attended a meeting
where some military guys dispassionately
discussed how using infrared optical communications, rather than radio, could be
a great benefit during a nuclear war in
CONUS (military speak for the continental
US), I was disgusted by their callous attitude.
I realized that a career in military research
was not for me. I therefore left RCA and
returned to the UK to become a senior lecturer at Humberside Polytechnic’s department of maritime operations, specializing in
navigation and radar-simulation training.
Unfortunately, the department closed
shortly after I joined it, and in the ensuing
chaos I was asked to work as a consultant. At
Humberside I had been involved in the
design of marine-radar training simulators,
and one of our research sponsors asked me
to design a similar system for them. This was
my lucky break. Before then, the people who
paid me were my bosses; now they were ma-
Branching out
I started the company now known as
Geomatix in 1992 as a one-man operation
with the goal of selling AutoTide in the
marine market, but I soon moved into other
areas – notably marine mapping – via a contract with the UK’s Sea Fish Authority in
Hull. The growth of oil and gas production
in the North Sea had caused problems for
the local fishing industry, as trawl gear would
sometimes get caught on sub-sea installations. This led to some nasty accidents and
even fatalities, so I became involved in converting sea-bed data about oil and gas installations into electronic marine charts for
fishing vessels, so that they can avoid hazards
while trawling.
As part of this work, I spent one summer
frantically driving around harbours and
intercepting fishing vessels so I could test
the then comparatively new GPS-based
electronic charts. On one occasion, I almost
ended up marooned on a fishing vessel as it
was forced to leave harbour by the descending tide. This could have been an embarrassing error for someone in the business of
Steering his own course Running a business has proved most fulfilling for marine specialist Stephen Taylor.
gically transformed into my clients. I was
able to use my skills in electronics, computing and design to rapidly produce a system
that fitted the bill. I was also able to set my
own direction and targets. Within a year I
had produced AutoTide, the world’s first
tidal-prediction system compatible with the
then-new Microsoft Windows operating system. I was enjoying being my own boss.
A long road to the sea
My career would not have been the same
without my first physics teacher, the Reverend Brother Egbert. A rather eccentric
individual, he would often announce things
like “the whole of physics is oscillatory” at
seemingly random intervals. On one occasion he sprayed his students with a Bunsen
burner connected to a water tap. This may
seem like an unlikely inspiration to study
physics, yet I credit him, and my father, an
early radio ham, for setting me on a career
path that led – after many twists and turns –
to me becoming my own boss at Geomatix.
